Chapter 1: the ends and the beginnings

Magic flies across the battlefield. Arcs of lightning, balls of fire, wisps of ice, and torrents of earth ravage the grounds, tearing through the dirt and grass with ease. The four elemental magics combine into a blindingly bright white streak, as they rip towards a woman in a tattered red cloak. The woman curses and raises her weapon. Crescent Rose shatters with the force of the combined magics, and Ruby dodges, silver eyes flaming as the power of all Four Maidens writhes within her. She drops her now useless weapon and launches a fireball back at her enemy, but the attack seems to harmlessly splash against her pale, black lined skin.

"Is that all you can do?" Salem taunts, dark energy dancing across her fingers. "You have had your magic for how long now?" Streaks of darkness race towards Ruby. She jumps up, sailing over top of the deadly attack. She lands in a crouch, building her magic to her hands. "Three years? Four? And you're still so unrefined." Ruby snarls, launching herself across the field, hands wreathed in electricity and fire. Salem effortlessly dodges and uses a gust of wind to push Ruby back, slamming her to the ground. "Such anger! It is clouding you, little rose." Ruby growls and hops to her feet, eyes blazing with anger.

"Don't call me that!" Ice speeds across the ground, spiking maliciously when it reaches Salem. The witch merely waves a hand, and the ice roars back at Ruby, faster and more vicious. "Fuck!" Ruby leaps back as the ice nears her, using her semblance to propel her further away. She lands with a twirl. Fire swirls on her hands, and she yells, releasing a large line of flames.

"I can see why Cinder was so obsessed with you." Salem lifts a hand and blocks the flames, twisting and suffocating them. Electricity dances over her fingers. "She chose so very well in her final thoughts." Lightning arcs forward in a blink, too fast to dodge. The electricity courses through Ruby, and she bites down on her tongue to prevent herself from screaming. Blood runs past her lips and she glares, her red aura crackling as it nears its limit. Salem raises a brow and smiles, "Your teammates, on the other hand," Ruby rears back at the mention of her fallen comrades. "could have chosen better."

"Don't…" How dare she! Ruby thinks, eyes narrowing.

"Especially the blonde." Ruby's fists clench tightly as Salem continues, "Truly, her and the cat were quite reckless in the end, weren't they?" Ruby knows that Salem is just taunting her, trying to make her lose her temper and make a mistake. The elder witch's eyes glow, "Oh, but the Schnee!" Ruby's foot moves forward without her knowledge, teeth baring in a horrid grimace.

"Shut up…" A smirk curls on Salem's face,

"I so enjoyed her screams." Magic rages beneath Ruby's skin as her eyes flash, illuminating the field around them. "Too bad she went so quickly." The witch knows just what to say. "I would have enjoyed having a bit more time with her." Ruby's across the field before she can think, pure magic clawing at Salem's flesh, leaving long thick gouges and drawing blood. The elder witch hisses and forces her back with a column of darkness. Silver light flashes from Ruby's eyes and Salem scowls as it washes over her, her pale skin burning on contact. Pure dark energy spears through the light, shattering Ruby's aura with an almost audible sizzle, leaving a gaping wound in her abdomen. Ruby grunts, falling to her knees, hands grasping her wound. Blood seeps through her fingers, dripping onto the grass before her. She calls for her magic, to protect herself, but it falters as Salem approaches. Salem's skin is slowly knitting itself back together, muscles reforming over her exposed bones. She holds out a hand, "Now, hand over the relic."

"Over my dead body." Ruby says, glaring up at the woman. Even if she had the relic, she wouldn't. What, did Salem really expect Ruby would keep such a thing on her person? No, the Relic of Destruction was hidden away safely. She'd sneaked off with the relic a few days ago and buried it at the base of the cliff that held her mother's gravestone. She dove into the freezing water there and used her magic to dig nearly ten feet down, before dropping the relic in and refilling the hole. Salem was unlikely to ever find it. Only Ruby knew where it was.

"Very well." Crackling green energy surrounds Salem's hand. The magic grows more and more powerful, glowing almost blindingly bright in the dark field. "This is your last chance, little rose." The gathered magic condenses into a swirling ball, containing a vortex of powerful energy. "Hand over the relic." Ruby sneers up at her. How many times does she have to say it? Well, if words won't work, then she'll do something else. Ruby spits, blood splattering against Salem's dress. The elder witch snarls angrily, the magic in her hands glowing ominously brighter.

The last thing Ruby sees is Salem's magic rushing her.

Ruby gasps awake, freezing. Cold snow melts against her feverish flesh, soothing. She sits up and looks around, noting an familiar cliff. Her forehead throbs, and she reaches up. Her hand comes back covered in blood and she winces, before returning her attention to her surroundings. Silver eyes land on the grave before her, and begin glowing as she realizes where she is. Her back arches as her magic rages inside her, painfully expressing its anger over their defeat. Her aura crackles, barely able to help, as the magic tears at her insides. She hacks up a wad of blood, writhing and groaning as she forces the magic back beneath her control. It takes the better part of ten minutes to temper the seemingly alive magic, convincing it to calm itself.

Panting, she closes her eyes and tries to breathe. Salem had killed her. And yet, here she is, alive, with the Maiden Magics acting like they were alive. She can almost feel emotion coming from the magic. Sure, she was aware that magic was different from aura, but it never felt like this before. The magic used to feel so similar to her aura, almost as if it was the same thing. Her magic flares angrily again, and Ruby gently soothes it with the remains of her aura.

Her eyes snap open in surprise. The magic's different. Too different. It seems to ignore her calling for it. She grasps at the wisps of magic inside her, and she brings a hand up to try to summon a fireball. It should be easy. After all, the Fall Magic was the first she received, after she finished off Cinder. But the fireball never surfaces. Instead, a silver wisp of energy snakes along her fingers, dancing and weaving between her finger tips.

"This…" She mumbles, eyes wide as she watches the silver energy soak back into her skin. Hadn't Oz had once mentioned something like this, back when he was still Oscar? Right, right, he called it unaffiliated magic.

Back when magic had been the norm, unaffiliated magic popped up rarely within humans. Most people's magic leaned towards one element or another, with a rare second or third element. Unaffiliated magic had no such constraints. It could be and do anything. It was up to the user to determine how to use it, and what elements to favour. The downside of unaffiliated magic was that it almost seemed to be alive. It followed the whims of its hosts, but it would express itself if it didn't like what its host was doing.

Nowadays, magic is only present in six people at the maximum. The Maidens, Ozma's current host, and Salem. And, apparently, in Ruby. Her magic no longer belongs to the Maidens. It is wholly her own. Ruby stares at her hands. How. How did her magic, which was once the combined magics of all four Maidens, become this? Was it something Salem did? Ruby shakes her head. No, Salem wouldn't do that. Unaffiliated magic is powerful, much more so than the magics found in the Maidens. Was it something Ruby herself did? Her hands clench as a biting cold wind stirs. She needs to figure this out. Maybe she should track down Oz's new host? There had been a promise lead about him being with a boy in Vacuo.

Snow crunches from deep within the trees behind her, and Ruby is quick to fling herself away from her mother's grave, into a small copse opposite. She climbs one of the trees, fingers numbing from the snow covered branches. From her new vantage point, she can easily see where she had awoken. An imprint of where her body had lain is marked obviously in the snow, alongside two puddles of blood, one large than the other. One from her now healed abdomen wound and another from when her magic rallied against her. With a quick hand wave, Ruby forces her new unaffiliated magic to swirl the snow around the spot, covering her tracks, just as a hooded child steps from the trees, red cloak swishing in time with the soft breeze. Ruby can barely believe her eyes as the child lowers their hood, and steps up towards her mother's gravestone. Dark hair that bleeds to red at the tips, pale skin, and bright silver eyes. All features Ruby shares with the kid. With herself. She recognizes the outfit the kid is wearing. She'd worn the same one for nearly three years straight.

"That's… me." She whispers to herself, as she watches the kid excitedly begin yammering to the grave. The kid is her. Based on size, outfit, and the condition of her red hood, her mini-me is 13, probably just recently turned 14. This is clearly before she met Roman Torchwick; before everything went to shit.

Has she… time traveled? It wasn't like it couldn't happen. She's met people who had time-related semblances. One person could even use his semblance to travel back up to three whole days. Her own semblance had some form of time manipulation about it. When you add in the amount of supercharged magic she and Salem were throwing around, and the pure raw energy behind Salem's last attack, anything was possible. Even traveling years into the past.

So, either time-travel, or possibly dimension travel. If she has time-travelled, then there's an easy way to check, without introducing herself to her mini-me of course. She needs to get to the city.

The City of Vale is fairly quiet at this time of the morning. Ruby saunters down the roads like she owns the city, a stolen hat and a pair of sunglasses covering her most identifiable features. Her aura had quickly patched up her outfit and her wounds, so there really was nothing odd about her. She simply looked like a Huntress on her day off. She smiles, right eye dragging awkwardly with the movement. She suppresses a wince. Her aura may have healed the wound on her face, but it certainly left a scar. Thankfully it hadn't affected her vision. But the scar was large, and, without the sunglasses, would draw attention. Even still, a few people stare for a second too long.

Her gaze is quickly grabbed by a young faunus boy handing out newspapers to passing civilians.

"Hello." She says, as she approaches. "How much for an issue?"

"5 lien, ma'am!" Five lien is barely a scratch in her emergency fund, which she always kept squirrelled away on her person. She hands over the small lien card and accepts the newspaper. Her eyes immediately land on the date.

"12P, 15D, 78AGW." 12th Phase, 15th Day, 78 years After the Great War. Ruby's eyes glance over the news inside, and she draws out her scroll, cross-referencing through the internet. She was right. Time travel. Her eyes widen in awe. She has a little over one year before everything begins. A little over a year to change everything. She could – no! No, no. She shakes her head and puts away her scroll. If she does anything right now, then who knows what could happen. First, she should wait until her mini-me started at Beacon. Then, she could meet up with Oz and Qrow, and she could plan. And then, she could begin changing things.

Her younger counterpart should start at Beacon sometime in 3rd Phase, 80AGW. If she wants to make sure that happens, then Ruby needs to make herself scarce until then. If she interferes with anything happening now, she might irrevocably mess everything up.

She drops the newspaper in a recycling bin and continues walking. First things first, she needs a new identity. Luckily, she knows of a place where she can at least inquire about a new identity.

Junior's Club is notorious, mainly for Hei 'Junior' Xiong's infamous information gathering skills. Ruby walks into the club and stares for a moment at the people, human and faunus, dancing and laughing. The lights in the club flash between colours quickly, making her eyes hurt. She scans the room, and makes a beeline for the bar, where Junior himself stands. He looks up as she approaches, hands laying flat on the bar top.

"What can I get you?" He asks, and Ruby drops a 20 lien card on the bar. She slides it close to him and smiles,

"I'm in need of something." Junior swipes the card and inspects it, turning it over in his hands. After a moment he nods towards a door behind the bar. Ruby hops over the bar and follows the man inside the room. The room is used as alcohol storage, with its large shelves full of various liquor bottles. Junior leads her around a few of the shelves, towards the back of the room. Sitting against the far wall is a small desk, with two chairs placed neatly in front of it. Junior steps up to the desk and leans on it, gesturing for Ruby to sit in one of the chairs.

"What are you looking for, ma'am?" He wonders, as she sits. Ruby takes a moment of relax minutely.

"I'm in need of a new identity." She says casually, "You could say my old one has… run its course, so to speak." She smirks. Considering her current identity is that of a child who is probably 14 at the oldest. "Don't bother asking about it." She shoots him a dangerous look, and he chuckles.

"Well, I can certainly acquire such a thing, for the right price." He eyes her, clearly trying to measure her worth and how much lien she could possibly have on her. Ruby begins digging through one of her pouches, saying,

"25 thousand lien." Junior startles briefly, clearly expecting to be low-balled at first. She figures that most people would low-ball the man, at first, before settling on a much higher price. "Not a card more. I'll pay some now, and the rest upon delivery." Ruby brings out five one thousand lien cards. He nods,

"That's plenty enough." Junior eyes the money, and whips out his scroll, possibly to note down any important information. "Got a name in mind?" Yes, she did. A nod to both her true self, and to her abilities.

"Carmine. Carmine Rosemage." Junior tilts his head, raising a brow. Ruby smirks, "You could say it's close enough to my current name to remember." He shrugs.

"Alright. Birth-date, parents, schooling?" Ruby blinks at the question.

"Don't really care about those." She adds another thousand lien to the cards in her hand. "One thousand more, for your upcoming troubles." Junior grabs the lien and nods towards a door hidden behind a shelf. "Back door's over there. Be back in three days, I should have everything by then."

Making a new weapon is easy enough. Ruby pays for six hours in a public forge, with the excuse that her weapons shattered on her last mission, and easily speeds through the process. Two kamas sit before her, gleaming silver slowly being replaced by red and black, as she carefully colours the two kamas with permanent paints.

Crescent Rose version 5, mark 4. Even though she can't publicly call these two by Crescent Rose's name, she can still honour her precious weapon.

Instead, they are Crescent Rise and Crescent Fall, Rise and Fall for short. Rise and Fall are based heavily off of Maria's old weapons, Life and Death. Without the skulls and colours, however. She didn't want to completely rip off the Grimm Reaper, after all. Though, she did keep the gravity dust. Honestly, it is too cool a feature to to get rid of. The idea of using two kamas, and then combining them into a double-bladed staff? For a weapon's nut like Ruby it was fascinating.

She did, also, improvise quite a bit. Instead of wood and basic mech-shift, she went full metal, and an upgraded mech-shift. The better shift enabled her to use Rise and Fall as a rifle, once they connected together. She also carved a long groove down each one, using her magic, so it could travel up the shaft, from her hands to the blades, enabling the use of spells while she fights with them.

Rise and Fall are one of her greatest works so far. She can't wait until Atlas reveals the lightweight mech-shift in a year. Though the kamas work well without it, the upcoming mech-shift will let the shift happen faster, plus let her put a scope on the ends, to make better use of Rise and Fall's rifle function.

Though she pays for the full six hours plus materials, Ruby barely uses five of them. Two hours to make Rise and Fall, two hours to fashion new armour and a new cloak, and one hour to make their sheathes.

She's forgone her combat skirt for a pair of black armoured pants, as well as disposing of her corset. Instead, she opted for a simple armour plated red vest and black undershirt. She did keep her current combat boots, as they were perfect the way they were.

Her new cloak is made with a darker red fabric, and it is long enough to brush her ankles as she walks. Metal dust is infused into the cloak, increasing its durability and protective power. She's also found out that silk threads are an excellent conduit for magic, and has weaved multiple threads into the cloak. If she focuses her magic through the threads, it hardens the entire fabric. If she activates the metal dust alongside using her magic, it turns the cloak into a nigh-impenetrable barrier.

Rise and Fall's sheathes are made of high quality leather, and fasten around her waist, letting her hook the weapons onto her lower back. The weapons stay there by using a combination of gravity and lightning dust to make a sort of magnetized effect.

After a moment of pondering, she also fashions a set of tinted goggles, to cover her silver eyes. These will hopefully lessen the chance of someone noticing her eye colour and raining hell down upon her.

Junior had told her to come back in three days, and so she did. She strides up to the front doors and takes a breath. Ruby - Carmine, she might as well get used to it, Carmine enters the club. It's the dead of the night, shortly before the club closes. The only people inside are some bouncers, the twins, and Junior himself. Junior waves her over to the bar, and she approaches.

"I've got the goods." He places a surprisingly thin stack of papers onto the bar. "Records have been implanted into Vacuo's systems." Carmine hadn't cared about the backstory of her supposed life, and left Junior to do as he pleased. Clearly, he'd taken that to mean 'do the bare minimum.' Whatever, as long as the identity works. "Birth certificate, basic school records, and medical records." He slides the papers over. "Should be able to fool even Ozpin." Carmine highly doubts that, but she accepts the papers and pages through them.

A birth certificate, claiming she was born to an unknown woman, who gave her her name before passing from childbirth, in 52 AGW, 10th Phase, 30th Day. Her eyebrows hike up in surprise. Despite never claiming such, Junior had managed to guess very close to her actual birthday. She'd told him to put any old date down, and he just happened to choose a date one day off. A scary coincidence.

What follows is a brief history of her supposed life. Carmine Rosemage had attended Amethyst Academy, a basic combat school nestled in one of Vacuo's smaller towns, until she was 12 years old, when she dropped out, unable to continue funding her education. Carmine had ended up unlocking her aura and subsequently broke both her arms. She'd spent four nights in a small medic camp on the border of the city, before being fully healed up by a passing Huntsman with a healing semblance. Other than that, the file is remarkably bland and average. All in all, however, the ID is serviceable and unlikely to raise any flags. After all, the deserts of Vacuo often led to orphans. It was also a popular spot for Huntresses to leave any unwanted babies. Hospitals in Vacuo often don't care about the whys. Carmine smiles.

"Seems fairly well made, for a rush job." Carmine says, stuffing the papers into one of her pouches. "I believe I owe you 20 thousand still?" She pulls out the money, plus a little extra, and drops it onto the bar. Junior quickly counts the lien and nods, an eyebrow raising at the extra amount.

"Very well, Miss Rosemage. It was a pleasure." As Carmine makes to leave, she looks over her shoulder at the man,

"You never saw me." Her existence blurs and vanishes, leaving a wide-eyed Junior and a single rose petal behind.

Now that she has an identity and is armed, she can leave, and avoid the city for a year. She's opted to leave Vale entirely, to lessen her chances of running into anyone she might recognize. And to also avoid any and all indication of Cinder Fall or her two lackeys. She decides, after a moment of arguing with herself, to head in the direction of Mistral. She can't stay on Sanus, as that's where everything happens. So, the next best thing. She'll probably have to stay away from Atlas as well, now that she thinks about it. Her ID could probably stand up to Atlas' strong security, but she doesn't want to risk it. Mantle would likely be safer, if she needs to be on Solitas for some reason.

Carmine walks towards the airship docks, eyes hidden behind her new goggles. They draw a few stares, but none last very long. As she steps onto the road leading to the docks, she spies a store selling scrolls. Her current scroll is far too high-tech for this era of technology, and likely will draw eyes if she uses it. She's already risked enough using it earlier. With a nod, she ducks into the store, and emerges a moment later with a brand new scroll. She removes her old scroll's battery and tucks it in with her identification papers. As she continues to walk, begins reprogramming her new scroll.

Reprogramming a scroll is difficult, but not impossible. It was one of the many skills she had learnt while on the run from Salem. She quickly does away with any and all location based tracking, keeping only a barebones GPS. She also encrypts her messenger, notes, and ID app, multiple times. She plants traps alongside each encryption, as well as false paths that lead either nowhere or to incorrect information. Satisfied that any and all information on her scroll is safe, she shoves it into one of her pockets.

As she enters the airship station, she mentally tallies her lien, and nods. She should have enough to buy a ticket to Anima. Not enough to get to the City of Mistral itself. Most likely the ship will dock in one of the continent's fringe cities.

She pays for her ticket, wincing a bit at how low her emergency stash has gotten. As she takes her seat, she counts her remaining lien. "5... 20..." She mumbles, "645." Not a lot. Even the seediest motel costs 100 or so lien to stay the night. And she'll need to purchase necessities. She can stretch the money to cover maybe a week, a week and half is she's stingy. Better start thinking of ways to make money quickly.

The airship docks in a small city. Carmine flicks her hood over her hair, and quickly leaves the city behind. She heads off in the direction of the City of Mistral. She wouldn't enter the city proper, but she would help out around the fringes, slaying Grimm to make a bit of cash. She should also probably get a legitimate hunter's license when she gets there. Carmine sighs, already feeling exhausted. This is going to be a long year.

inspired by:
Remnant's Reclaimer by Hysterical Clerical Hijinks here on ff
A Rose's Final Task by Cipher32 here on ff
Crimson Memories Repeat by OverlordSwarm here on ff
Displaced by StarYeti here on ff
New Divide by snoopykid here on ff
if you hadn't noticed ive read most of the rwby fanfics on ff lmao